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Iceland Trip

On Saturday 16th Februarya few Queensmead geography students from Years 10 to 13 and four teachers travelled to Iceland. We touched down at Keflavik airport at 6.30 pm and then made our way to the hotel for food and a good nights sleep.

The next day we were up early ready for a day of exploring in the Iceland Golden Circle. Our first stop was theGullfoss waterfall. The two tier waterfall was absolutely magnificent and was surrounded by huge mountains. On the way to our next destination we visited a farm where there were Icelandic horses. We had the opportunity to pet and feed them and also take photographs.

Our next stop was to see the Geysirs, they spouted boiling water and steam from under the ground up and into the air it was such an amazing sight. We then visited the Thingvellir National Park, where we could see the Eurasian and North American plate. We walked up onto the plate between the rocks until we reached the top, so you could say we were in North America!

On Monday we were up even earlier ready for a tour of the south coast of Iceland. The tour started an hour and a half drive from the hotel. Our first stop of the day was the Seljalandsfoss waterfall.The waterfall drops sixty metres from the top of the mountain to the ground. We walked along the bottom of the mountain until we reached another waterfall which was between a crevice in the rock. It was absolutely spectacular. During the coach journey to our next destination of Vík í Mýrdal, we passedEyjafjallajökull, a volcano completely covered in a huge ice sheet called a glacier. When we arrived at Vík í Mýrdal it was a remote seafront village where the beaches were black due to the erosion and weathering of the volcanic (igneous) rock.

Before we headed back to the hotel we travelled to theSólheimajökullVegur glacier. We walked towards the glacier in the U-shaped valley between the mountains. Afterwards we stopped at Skógafoss, the most amazing waterfall in Iceland.

We went back to the hotel for dinner and to get ready for the Northern Lights tour later that evening. At 9 pm on the dot we travelled to the National Park. We stopped for ten minutes but saw nothing so went further south and stopped for a further forty five minutes. We waited and waited and then we saw them,but unfortunately they were very faint. Our guide told us there just was not enough solar activity to see them any clearer.

On Tuesday, our last day we were allowed a lie in as the trip to the Blue Lagoon was not booked until eleven o’clock. We got up for breakfast, packed our things and then got on the coach. The Blue Lagoon was amazing, the water was blue and very hot. At one o’clock we got changed left the Blue Lagoon and headed for the airport ready to leave Iceland.

We would all like to thank Miss Sweeney, Miss Flanagan, Miss Mangan and Mr Coles for all their hard work in organising the trip that we all thoroughly enjoyed. THANK YOU!